This was briefly touched on in the Gay Rage thread, but I didn't want to hijack with a rant. Here I go...

Naturally, given the high school guidance counselor perp, I'd have an issue with older guys (he was in his 40s, me in my teens). But, as I've examined it, there's a pattern:

• When I was first old enuf to hit the gay bars (18), I'd go home with some repulsive, closeted "old" men, who would even have pix of their wives and kids around. I suppose I was recreating the abuse. Just the memory makes me sick.

• When I did inpatient codep treatment, I freaked out (and even said something in group) about another patient who, though he'd done nothing, set my dirty old man gaydar off. Had no idea at the time, nor did anyone else including the therapists, that it was the CSA coming up.

• The night Dad died, his (married), older pastor picked me up at the airport and within hours tried to seduce me at Dad's place. wtf?

• A few months ago, during a shoot, an older associate (70s) of a close friend (60s) grabbed my ass and I went off on him.

In short, old guys (or even guys who look old) disgust me. I've considered it might be gay ageism. Ironic, since I'm "old" (50s). It's deeper than that. I'm repulsed by DL/closet cases (apologies to those on the board who are bi, but I have to get this off my chest) who fall back on straight appearances, old guys who try to dress like frat boys to get frat boys (good lord, a 50-something guest at a recent dinner wore hip-huggers and it was all I could do to keep from asking, "WHAT were you thinking?"), etc.

As for me, haven't had a libido in 6-7 years anyway. I'm quite pleased with being my age. Young hotties/muscleboys are amusing - been there, done them - but not interesting. I gel best with my own age group. I guess it's a matter of my perceptions.

I think what you say has a lot of validity. There are so many variables to the equations that result in what we do after the abuse. My abuser was more like an older brother. There was about a three-year difference between us when the abuse started. While I was barely thirteen, I looked younger than my age and he looked older than his fifteen years, so physiologically it may have been more like eleven and seventeen.

The big caveat - aside from a tRiGGeR wArNiNg - is that I am not a therapist or a psychologist or educated in those disciplines beyond a 101-level freshman college course. I am a professional in the sciences, though, so I naturally look to formulate evidence-based hypothetical differentials to explain things I do not understand. And I humbly admit that everything I say in this post may well be errant interpretation. So here is my highly questionable attempt to practice self-psychology...

Like you, I also seeked out men old enough to be my father. I think the re-enactment formulas are not as simple as just recasting roles that correlate to ages, or you would think I'd be looking for older brother figures, right? I engaged with both, actually. But the men who could have saved me but failed to do so had graying temples. My own dad plus two other fathers talked to my molester when he was caught, but my victimization completely escaped their notice. While I was greatly relieved at the time that my own shame was not discovered, I also was aware that was my only way out. And I think I was still looking for them to save me in a way years later. Perhaps it just got entangled in all the sexual confusion I had.

Also, I distinctly remember interpreting the intimacies that my abuser engaged in with me as very paternal behaviors. It was pretty powerful stuff and I don't mean to trigger, but in my mind I can't help wonder that it took me back to being undressed by my father as a very small boy (never abuse there - sexual or otherwise). I really did not interpret these things as purely sexual at twelve; I came into puberty late. I imagine that my young mind drew connections to things of similar intimacy, like parental pampering, because those were my only references. And so I wonder if that was another factor as to why I looked for graying temples when I was finally old enough to seek sexual companionship on my own terms.

Finally, I cannot dismiss the safety factor. When I first came out, I had a very traumatizing episode with a man who met the big brother age differential with me. There was a strong attraction between us, and suffice it to say that after he locked the door, I found myself helpless in the strong hands of a man I now realize must have been a sexual sociopath. He was a big guy, I was still a slender kid, and he forced his will and got what he wanted despite my pleas for him to stop. What a wonderful and healthy first sexual experience post-molestation, right? I was VERY lucky to walk away and only did so because I cooperated, kept my protests to a whimper, and he let me go when he was done. After that, gray temples just seemed SO much safer.

I was 13 when the older male who was a decade and a half years or so my senior started with me. Learned a lot during this time... Lasted 4 or 5 years. I carried the CSA into mid-life by having a relationship with one who was a decade and a half years or so my senior. (See any correlation here?) It was a foul, abusive, one-sided relationship, not in my favor. Lasted 5 horrible years. It was the catalyst that sent me to therapy because I can't let myself repeat the past again, and again, and again. And it was the relationship in which I experienced the ASA.

I was also disgusted by older men, but that seems to have softened quite a lot this past few years.

But growing up, man, if an older guy even so much as looked at me, I rolled my eyes at them. I had such a tremendous fear / loathing of older men.

Only once did I let a guy (who must have been 10-15 years older) go down on me. I was completely drunk and unable to say 'no'. I was so repulsed by the fact that I allowed that to happen, I swore "never again".

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